Meanwhile the war had caused the recall of the Austrian troops south of the Po, and the patriots had risen in joy. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Duke of Modena, the Duchess Regent of Parma, the papal legates of the Romagna, ran away, and provisional governments were established; but a permanent political disposition was attended with difficulties. The states themselves wished to join Piedmont, but the wish was not unanimous, for many people wanted to preserve local autonomy and their old historic boundaries. Napoleon favoured his vague confederacy, and a European Congress supported his view. Indecision reigned, but the cause of national union triumphed through the vigour of Count Bettino Ricasoli, a man of iron character, head of the provisional government in Tuscany. "We must," he wrote, "no longer speak of Piedmont, nor of Florence, nor of Tuscany; we must speak neither of fusion nor annexation, but of the union of the Italian people under the constitutional government of Victor Emmanuel."[24] Certainly the fugitive dukes could only return by force, and though Continental Europe approved their return, there was nobody to supply the force. The little states voted to join Piedmont. Piedmont, however, hesitated, in fear of European contradiction. Nobody but Cavour could manage the matter, and he was recalled to office (1860). Cavour appealed to the doctrine of the popular will to be expressed by a plebiscite. France, however, would only consent upon cession of Savoy and Nice, a measure already talked of as the price of the French alliance; and in spite of the reluctance of the king to surrender Savoy, the cradle of his race, the price had to be paid. The cession was made, and Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Romagna were united with the Kingdom of Sardinia under the name of the Kingdom of Italy (April 15, 1860).

In the mean time Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies, had died, hated and despised by everybody, and his son Francis II, a weak, ignorant, bigoted lad, had mounted the throne. He refused a suggestion of Victor Emmanuel to join in the war against Austria, threw himself into the arms of the reactionary party, and made an alliance with the Pope. The discontented liberals took courage at the news from the north. In April, 1860, the revolt began in Palermo, and, though suppressed there, spread. Two young patriots, Francesco Crispi and Rosalino Pilo, went about stirring the people to action. Garibaldi was begged to put himself at the head of the proposed revolution. On the night of May 6, two ships, the Lombardy and the Piedmont, secretly left Genoa, and took Garibaldi and a thousand volunteers aboard. This band, known as i Mille, is nearly as famous and as legendary as King Arthur and his Round Table. On May 11, the ships landed at Marsala. Two Neapolitan cruisers came up, but two English men-of-war happened to be there also; and the English captains, under guise of friendly notification to the Neapolitans, took some action which delayed the latter long enough to let the last Garibaldians disembark. Once on shore, Garibaldi's volunteers ran to secure the telegraph office. They arrived just after the operator had telegraphed that two Piedmontese ships, filled with troops, had come into the harbour; a Garibaldian was able to add to the message, "I have made a mistake; they are two merchantmen." The answer came back, "Idiot." The volunteers marched inland. A provisional government was organized; Garibaldi was made dictator, and Crispi secretary of state. The cry was "Italy and Victor Emmanuel!" Garibaldi was joined by insurgent Sicilians, and, with numbers considerably increased, fought and defeated the Bourbon army. The story reads like the exploits of Hector before the Greek trenches. Victory followed victory. Palermo fell, Milazzo and Messina; then he crossed the straits and invaded Calabria (August). This marvellous triumph, for there had been thirty thousand regular troops to oppose Garibaldi, frightened King Francis; he proclaimed a constitution, appealed to Napoleon, and even to Victor Emmanuel, for help. It was too late. Garibaldi swept on victorious, and the king fled from Naples (September 6); the next day Garibaldi marched in and assumed dictatorship of the kingdom.

England approved, but Continental Europe looked askance at this irregular proceeding, and Victor Emmanuel and Cavour began to feel uneasy, apprehensive lest the Great Powers should intervene in Italian affairs. It was a difficult situation. Garibaldi was moving on northward, and proclaimed his intention of going to Rome, regardless of the French army stationed there, and then to Venice, regardless of the European treaties that gave Venice to Austria. Besides, the Pope had collected an army (largely of foreign recruits) to suppress the liberal movements in Umbria and the Marches, and to give aid to the Neapolitan king. Here were further opportunities for foreign intervention. Evidently Cavour must act promptly if he wished Piedmont to continue to control the national movement. He requested the Pope to dismiss his new army. The Pope refused. The Piedmontese army crossed the pontifical border, scattered the papal army, and took possession of all the papal territory, except the city of Rome and the country immediately about it, and then marched on across the Neapolitan boundary. Here the Bourbon army was holding Garibaldi at bay. The arrival of the Piedmontese determined the issue. A less noble man might have shown resentment at having another come at the eleventh hour and seize the fruits of victory, but Garibaldi hailed Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy, refused the proffered honours and rewards, and went home, a poor man, to the little island of Caprera. The Two Sicilies and the liberated parts of the Papal States voted to join the Kingdom of Italy. In February, 1861, the first Italian parliament was held, and Victor Emmanuel formally received the title King of Italy. Excepting Rome and Venice, Italy was free and independent.

Rome was the more pressing question of the two. A history of twenty-five hundred years, a profound sentiment, a patriotic, poetic, romantic love, had inevitably determined that Rome must be the capital of United Italy. On the other hand, opposed to the Italian national sentiment was the historic Catholic sentiment, diffused throughout Europe and strongest in France. The Pope naturally deemed his Italian birth inferior in obligation to his Catholic position. Moreover, the Temporal Power of the Popes had endured for more than a thousand years, and since the time of Julius II the pontifical title had been as good as the title to public or private property anywhere. Catholics honestly believed that this political kingdom was necessary to the independence of the Church. How could the world, they said, believe in papal impartiality if the Papacy were under the thumb of the Italian government? The difference in point of view inevitably brought the ardent Papist and the patriotic Nationalist to mutual injustice. The Italians looked on Pius IX as their worst enemy; the Roman Curia deemed the Italians robbers. French sympathy with the Papists, and especially the presence of a French army in Rome, made the question exceedingly difficult. A special circumstance aggravated the difficulty. The King of Naples, having taken refuge in Rome, armed and subsidized gangs of brigands, who raided the Neapolitan provinces and committed unspeakable outrages. These rascals, when pursued by the Piedmontese army, crossed the pontifical border and were safe. This condition was intolerable.

At this juncture the great statesman who had steadfastly pursued his policy,—a free Church in a free State,—and never lost hope of a peaceful solution of the Roman difficulty, died (June 6, 1861). The priest who shrived him was summoned to Rome, deprived of his parish, suspended from his office, and sent to finish his days in a remote monastery; so strongly did the Roman Court feel that Cavour and his abettors were wicked men.

Cavour's successors, Ricasoli and Rattazzi, with feebler gait, followed his policy as best they could; but uncertainty and hesitation prevailed. The two great questions, Rome and Venice, pressed for solution. The radicals clamored to have the Italian army march on Rome. Garibaldi's impatience would not brook further inaction. He left his island home at Caprera, and betook himself to Sicily, crying, "Rome or Death!" With a little army of hot-tempered radicals he crossed into Calabria. The Italian government had no choice. Regular troops met Garibaldi at Aspromonte, near Reggio, and bade him withdraw; he refused; shots were fired. Which side fired first is uncertain. Garibaldi was wounded and made prisoner (August 29, 1862). This indignity to the national hero roused much hard feeling, but reasonable men perceived that the solution of the Roman question had to be found in some other way than by a filibustering expedition against a city held by the troops of a power with whom the nation was at peace.

The liberation of Venice came first. Prussia occupied a position in Germany somewhat similar to that of Piedmont in Italy. Both had somewhat similar problems. Both felt antagonism to Austria, and also a suspicion of France. In April, 1866, the two states made an alliance against Austria, who, fearing the combination, tried to break it by offering to cede Venetia to Italy if she would abandon the Prussian alliance. Victor Emmanuel refused, and war began in June. The Italians were beaten both on land and sea, to their great mortification and chagrin. The crushing Prussian victory at Sadowa, however, forced Austria to accept the victor's terms, including the cession of Venice. On November 7 Victor Emmanuel entered the city. Rome alone was left.

Garibaldi made another desperate attempt, but was defeated by the French at Mentana (1867). Not by Italian victories, but in consequence of Prussian victories, the conquest of Rome was finally effected. The French were obliged to withdraw their garrison during the Franco-Prussian War, and then the Italian government, which, to the shame of ardent patriots, had so long forborne out of obedience to the will of the French, gave notice to the world that it would annex Rome. After a useless call upon the Pope for peaceful surrender, Victor Emmanuel directed his army to march on the city. Real resistance was out of the question, but Pius IX had decided to yield only to force. On the 20th of September, 1870, a breach was made in the wall near Porta Pia, a few shots were fired, a few score soldiers killed and wounded, and the Italian army marched in and took possession of the city. A plebiscite was held, and by a vote of 133,681 to 1507 the city voted to become a part of Italy. In June, 1871, the seat of government was formally removed from Florence, and Rome once again, after fifteen hundred years, became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

FOOTNOTE:

[24] The Union of Italy, W. J. Stillman, p. 300.